No. 74. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1750.
_Rixatur de lana sæpe caprina._
HOR. Lib i. Ep. xviii. 15.
For nought tormented, she for nought torments.
ELPHINSTON.
Men seldom give pleasure, where they are not pleased themselves; it is
necessary, therefore, to cultivate an habitual alacrity and cheerfulness,
that in whatever state we may be placed by Providence, whether we
are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or to afford
protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact. For
though it is generally imagined, that he who grants favours, may spare
any attention to his behaviour, and that usefulness will always procure
friends; yet it has been found, that there is an art of granting requests,
an art very difficult of attainment; that officiousness and liberality
may be so adulterated, as to lose the greater part of their effect; that
compliance may provoke, relief may harass, and liberality distress.
No disease of the mind can more fatally disable it from benevolence, the
chief duty of social beings, than ill-humour or peevishness; for though
it breaks not out in paroxysms of outrage, nor bursts into clamour,
turbulence, and bloodshed, it wears out happiness by slow corrosion,
and small injuries incessantly repeated. It may be considered as the
canker of life, that destroys its vigour, and checks its improvement,
that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what
it cannot consume.
Peevishness, when it has been so far indulged, as to outrun the motions
of the will, and discover itself without premeditation, is a species of
depravity in the highest degree disgusting and offensive, because no
rectitude of intention, nor softness of address, can ensure a moment's
exemption from affront and indignity. While we are courting the favour
of a peevish man, and exerting ourselves in the most diligent civility,
an unlucky syllable displeases, an unheeded circumstance ruffles and
exasperates; and in the moment when we congratulate ourselves upon having
gained a friend, our endeavours are frustrated at once, and all our
assiduity forgotten, in the casual tumult of some trifling irritation.
This troublesome impatience is sometimes nothing more than the symptom
of some deeper malady. He that is angry without daring to confess his
resentment, or sorrowful without the liberty of telling his grief, is
too frequently inclined to give vent to the fermentations of his mind
at the first passages that are opened, and to let his passions boil over
upon those whom accident throws in his way. A painful and tedious course
of sickness frequently produces such an alarming apprehension of the
least increase of uneasiness, as keeps the soul perpetually on the watch,
such a restless and incessant solicitude, as no care or tenderness can
appease, and can only be pacified by the cure of the distemper, and the
removal of that pain by which it is excited.
Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age. When
the strength is crushed, the senses dulled, and the common pleasures
of life become insipid by repetition, we are willing to impute our
uneasiness to causes not wholly out of our power, and please ourselves
with fancying that we suffer by neglect, unkindness, or any evil which
admits a remedy, rather than by the decays of nature, which cannot be
prevented or repaired. We therefore revenge our pains upon those on whom
we resolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time
we have the greatest need of tenderness and assistance.
But though peevishness may sometimes claim our compassion, as the
consequence or concomitant of misery, it is very often found, where
nothing can justify or excuse its admission. It is frequently one of the
attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by insolence in exacting
homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of
idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to
endure the least obstruction of her wishes. Those who have long lived in
solitude indeed naturally contract this unsocial quality, because, having
long had only themselves to please, they do not readily depart from their
own inclinations; their singularities therefore are only blameable, when
they have imprudently or morosely withdrawn themselves from the world;
but there are others, who have, without any necessity, nursed up this
habit in their minds, by making implicit submissiveness the condition of
their favour, and suffering none to approach them, but those who never
speak but to applaud, or move but to obey.
He that gives himself up to his own fancy, and converses with none but
such as he hires to lull him on the down of absolute authority, to
sooth him with obsequiousness, and regale him with flattery, soon grows
too slothful for the labour of contest, too tender for the asperity of
contradiction, and too delicate for the coarseness of truth; a little
opposition offends, a little restraint enrages, and a little difficulty
perplexes him; having been accustomed to see every thing give way to his
humour, he soon forgets his own littleness, and expects to find the world
rolling at his beck, and all mankind employed to accommodate and delight
him.
Tetrica had a large fortune bequeathed to her by an aunt, which made
her very early independent, and placed her in a state of superiority
to all about her. Having no superfluity of understanding, she was soon
intoxicated by the flatteries of her maid, who informed her that ladies,
such as she, had nothing to do but take pleasure their own way; that she
wanted nothing from others, and had therefore no reason to value their
opinion; that money was every thing; and that they who thought themselves
ill-treated, should look for better usage among their equals.
Warm with these generous sentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world,
in which she endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and
vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beauty, nor wit, in any
uncommon degree, she suffered such mortifications from those who thought
themselves at liberty to return her insults, as reduced her turbulence
to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only
where she might hope to tyrannize without resistance. She continued from
her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with
so much diligence, that she has formed a principle of disapprobation, and
finds in every place something to grate her mind, and disturb her quiet.
If she takes the air, she is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of
the sun, or the gloom of the clouds; if she makes a visit, the room in
which she is to be received is too light, or too dark, or furnished with
something which she cannot see without aversion. Her tea is never of the
right sort; the figures on the China give her disgust. Where there are
children, she hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, she cannot
bear a place without some cheerfulness and rattle. If many servants are
kept in a house, she never fails to tell how lord Lavish was ruined by a
numerous retinue; if few, she relates the story of a miser that made his
company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because she
had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the
squirrel leaped within two yards of her; and with a third, because she
could not bear the noise of the parrot.
Of milliners and mantua-makers she is the proverbial torment. She compels
them to alter their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it after another
fashion; then changes her mind, and likes it better as it was at first;
then will have a small improvement. Thus she proceeds till no profit can
recompense the vexation; they at last leave the clothes at her house, and
refuse to serve her. Her maid, the only being who can endure her tyranny,
professes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the
consequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised.
It sometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness,
or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of
perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding,
and teaches the mind to discern faults with unhappy penetration. It is
incident likewise to men of vigorous imagination to please themselves
too much with futurities, and to fret because those expectations
are disappointed, which should never have been formed. Knowledge and
genius are often enemies to quiet, by suggesting ideas of excellence,
which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man
rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof
of understanding, unless his superiority appears from less doubtful
evidence; for though peevishness may sometimes justly boast its descent
from learning or from wit, it is much oftener of a base extraction, the
child of vanity and nursling of ignorance.
No. 75. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1750.
_Diligitur nemo, nisi cui Fortuna secunda est._
_Quæ, simul intonuit, proxima quæque fugat._
OVID, Ex Ponto. Lib. ii. Ep. iii. 23.
When smiling Fortune spreads her golden ray,
All crowd around to flatter and obey:
But when she thunders from an angry sky,
Our friends, our flatterers, our lovers fly.
Miss A. W.[49]